AF Secretary James touts Barksdale

Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James gets a standing ovation before her speech Wednesday at the Air Force Global Strike Command Technology and Innovation Symposium at the Bossier Civic Center.
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No stranger to Barksdale Air Force Base, Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James plans to become almost a regular visitor to the area.

In her second visit to the B-52 stronghold in her 10-month tenure as the service’s top civilian leader, she also took time to speak at the Air Force Global Strike Command Technology and Innovation Symposium at the Bossier Civic Center, meet with local and visiting Air Force Global Strike Command community leaders and hand out the first 25 awards of the Nuclear Deterrence Operations Service Medal to airmen working hard at what she sees as her No. 1 task: the nation’s nuclear enterprise.

“It is not my first time here,” she said in a round-robin session with media. “It is my second time at Barksdale, and there will be a third and a fourth. I’ll be coming back regularly to check on the status of our nuclear enterprise and our nuclear missions.”

“It’s a special treat to be here for the Global Strike Challenge,” she told a cheering crowd of hundreds of attendees. “It is my first time ever. I’m looking forward to a rousing and loud evening.”

The crowd, largely young male and female airmen charged with control, care and use of the nation’s nuclear missiles and bombers, started to accommodate her right there. Missile wing attendees from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., in particular, were loud and rowdy, enthusiastically pounding the concrete floor of the Center with wooden ax-handles they carry as a symbol of their unit.

“Nothing pumps me up more than being with our terrific airmen and seeing them in action,” James said, noting she’s tried to divide her time between office work in Washington and with her troops in the field.

“So far I have seen all five of our core mission in action, 49 bases in 23 states,” she said, adding that in her 10 months at the helm “I have had a special place in my heart, as well as in my travel plans, for the Air Force Global Strike bases. Almost since Day 1 I have been tracking on the issues that are affecting our nuclear forces. Although I have have been to a fair number of bases, there are still lots of bases that I haven’t been to once, let alone twice. ... I have been everywhere else in Global Strike twice, Whiteman (Air Force Base) once. So I’ve got my eye on you and I’m going to keep coming back over and over and over again.”

Her talk, following briefings from the commander of the Navy’s submarine forces, the chief master sergeant of the Air Force and the senior enlisted leaders of U.S. Strategic Command, , former Global Strike head KLt. Gen. James Kowalski (now deputy commander of StratCom) and the principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, had as its theme treating adversity as a step on the path to success.

“There is no question in my mind that this week’s Challenge demonstrates your dedication, your skill and your passion for the mission,” she said. “That’s the same passion that I have seen over and over again when I have visited you at your locations, at your individual bases. You have a truly powerful effect on our security in the United States, and there is no mission more important to our security than the nuclear mission.”

As examples of one who has used adversity as a means to success, she cited Louis Silvie “Louie” Zamperini, an American World War II prisoner of war survivor, inspirational speaker and Olympic distance runner whose life has been made into a movie, “Unbroken,” directed by Angelina Jolie. Zamperini died in July. He was bombardier on a B-24 forced to ditch in the Pacific on a search-and-rescue mission, spent 47 days adrift, only to find safety on an island occupied by the Japanese, leading to captivity that lasted more than two years.

“This was a man who endured immense adversity,” but endured and triumphed, she said.

She also cited a recent visit to Colorado Springs to watch the Wounded Warrior Games, where military personnel who suffered grievous wounds competed in demanding sports.

“To a man and a woman, all they wanted to do was get back to their units, get back into the full-up military, in many cases back in the fight,” she said.

Her final exampled was the nation’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, who lost a bid for the Senate in 1858 to Stephen Douglas, only to become the nation’s leader during its most trying time.

“You know the rest of the history quite well,” she said

All had one thing in common, she said.

“They faced down adversity,” she said. “They worked through it and they came roaring back stronger than ever before, to go on to make history.”

That led her to the lesson for Global Strike personnel. Just weeks into her leadership, a cheating scandal broke in the ranks of the nuclear missile forces community, leading to her touring her bases to learn of the root causes and determine corrective action.

She came back with seven observations, issues she determined needed attention. These included a culture of micromanagement; a need for accountability on all levels; greater distinction between training and evaluation; the need for rededication to core values of integrity, service and excellence; a need for professional development for nuclear leaders on all levels; putting the service’s money where its mouth was by rewarding the nuclear mission folks; and making needed long- and short-term investments in areas ranging from parts and maintenance to personnel and staffing.

She noted that parallel creation of a Force Improvement Program by Global Strike head Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson at Barksdale solicited bottom-up thoughts on needed changes in the nuclear mission, and that culmination of all this led to initiatives that include a half-billion dollars for the nuclear enterprise, with more to come; monetary incentives; increased manning; ROTC scholarships in the missile fields; and elevation of Global Strike to four-star status, even though that will entail reducing another command from a four-star to three-star status.

All this comes at a time when the services face a need to downsize and close facilities, but she stressed the nuclear mission is paramount.

Responding to an observation that local supporters have always sought to increase the number of missions at Barksdale, James told The Times there is no mission more important than that at Barksdale now.

“You’ve got the No. One mission of the entire Air Force headquartered right here with Global Strike,” she said. “We are going to see to it that this is led by a four-star going forward. We do need to close bases across the Department of Defense because we do have excess capacity. As a former business leader, you just don’t want to be spending money on facilities that you don’t need. It takes money away from other things that you do need ... But at the same time I hate to see communities needlessly worry about if their base might be closed, particularly when so many important things are going on here.”